


A Space Between Death and Sleep

by SquirrellyThief



Series: Post-TLJ Character Works [1]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: (not successful), Abusive Relationship, Character Study, His thoughts are inconsistent and gross, I Don't Even Know, Kylo Ren's head is a weird place, M/M, Suicidal Themes, Suicide Attempts, TLJ Compliant, There's a sort of non-con scene in the middle, These two are disgusting, Though shit is dubious, abusive behaviors, and bad for each other, i guess, more of a fantasy really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-22 02:57:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13157799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SquirrellyThief/pseuds/SquirrellyThief
Summary: Hux puts himself out of commission. Ren keeps watch while he recovers.





	A Space Between Death and Sleep

He forced the door to the general’s quarters open with a wave of his hand; the locking mechanism groaning loudly as it fought to stay in place. He wasn’t about to bother with security codes. Didn’t care enough to. He was Supreme Leader and, frankly, _fuck_ Hux and his privacy. Fuck Hux’s day off too for that matter. A part of him, something soft and weak near his core he’d been whittling away at for ages but could never quite seem to rid himself of, felt a pang of guilt for the man. He’d caught Hux sleeping at his work desk or taking micronaps in the break rooms more and more since they left Crait almost a week ago. He couldn’t remember the last time Hux had been off the bridge for more than an hour since Starkiller unless it was at Snoke’s request.

But it didn’t matter. If Hux had just _answered his calls_ he wouldn’t have had to barge in. So, really, the interruption was still, at its root, all Hux’s fault anyway.

Hux was standing at his desk, the collar of his uniform open to reveal the yellowing bruise Kylo had left there. His gloves and belt were missing, his hair disheveled. He had one hand resting on the frosted desktop, keeping him upright. The other hand was holding a clear, just shy of full, rectangular glass bottle by the neck. He held it nearly upside down, his throat working as he swallowed down heaping gulps of the pale gold liquid. He breathed through his nose in loud huffs, a valiant effort to empty the bottle before removing his mouth from it even once. When he finally put it down there was less than a mouthful left and he shuddered.

“Re-“ He coughed into his sleeve, leaning heavily on the hand resting against his desk. “Ahem- Supreme Leader. Wha- Was there something you needed?” No customary salute. No straightening of his back. Just a curious arch of his brow.

Kylo stared at him, furious.

Hux didn’t budge.

“Did you,” Kylo’s eyes flicked to the bottle still in Hux’s hand, “just down an entire bottle of liquor in one go?”

Hux’s sharp brows knit together. He looked at the bottle a second then knocked back the last bit in a startlingly coordinated motion. “Technically two.”

“You seem to be handling it well,” Kylo blurted out before his mind could provide something more pithy to say. It was a rare occasion to see the general with so much as a hair out of place. Even sleep-deprived and over-caffeinated it had taken physical bodily harm to disrupt his near robotic exterior and make him look human. The man didn’t partake in leisure and comforts, it just wasn’t his way. The only luxuries his quarters seemed to have were a sofa and a bathrobe; and even those had their practical uses. To see him drink, and heavily, was so jarring Kylo wondered if it would give a lesser man whiplash.

Hux leveled him a deadpan look that was ever so slightly off-center. “Takes a while to kick in. Genetics.” The ‘s’ wasn’t quite what it should have been; Hux’s clipped accent muddying. The fact that he’d been able to say that much, Kylo hated to admit it, was rather impressive. A strange, morbid curiosity took up the space his frustration once occupied.

Hux drunk was not a thing Kylo Ren thought he’d ever have the misfortune to see. Much less be curious on the subject when the opportunity arose. Were the rumors true? Was he loose? Talkative? _Funny?_ Or did he rage the way people claimed his father had? Did he spill treasonous secrets? Would he cry? Was there something, _anything_ , that could come out of this that Kylo might be able to use as emotional blackmail later. A way to sting the man when he grew numb to beatings, just as Snoke had on him.

Kylo watched Hux run a hand through his hair and pull a few copper strands loose from their perfectly combed coif.

Whatever it was, Kylo realized, it was bound to be entertaining. He wondered, briefly, how he might get damning information out of the man if he wasn’t forthcoming with it. Memories of Han leaning over bars, sweet-talking his fellow scoundrels into selling out their cohorts came to mind and were immediately tamped down. They had no place here.

When Kylo returned his attention to the present the convivial silence had turned into something tense and ominous.

“Did I ever tell you how I joined the Order?” Hux asked. He turned so he was half sitting, half leaning on his desk. The glass bottle in his hands gave him something to fiddle with and focus on as he spoke. Kylo could see pink crescents perforating in his head line through the glass.

“Through the Academy, I thought.”

“Before that.”

Kylo could feel things shifting in a way he didn’t want them to. He sensed darkness here, could smell it like exhaust in the air; not the warm, comforting dark that surged through him either. No. This was colder, like the space between stars. Or, more fittingly, the spaces where heavenly bodies once occupied, but were no longer.

Hux never spoke about his life before Starkiller or the _Finalizer_ unless it was to cite accomplishments for which he’d received commendations or awards. Events with holos or paperwork to show as proof that _yes, he had done this thing._ His past was a résumé not a childhood. It was schooling and training and simulations. Rigorous, unforgiving, and savage. Not the games and friends and family Ben Solo’s had been.

What Kylo knew he’d gotten from Hux’s dossier when he’d first met the man and even that began with suspicious spontaneity in Hux’s tenth year; a brief mentorship under Admiral Rae Sloane alongside his accelerated lessons. Brendol’s despicable nature hidden in the wording of Sloane’s recommendation letters that accompanied every application Hux submitted to programs of higher academic rigor. Never the same letter twice. Maratelle’s hatred of Hux, Hux’s nature as a bastard heir, and other, similarly poorly kept secrets could be found by sifting through archives and transcripts of meetings Brendol had attended before Hux had a file of his own. Kylo had searched for them all in his hunt for the general’s weaknesses. Of Hux’s mother, Kylo had only found a name: Ariadne, no surname listed, now deceased, next of kin: Armitage Hux, now general to the First Order, no estate to inherit.

Upon making these discoveries, Kylo was consumed with jealous rage. He wished Ben Solo’s life had been so poorly documented. That he might live on the laurels of his accomplishments as a knight instead of hiding from the shadows of a dead boy.

“I was four,” Hux was saying, “It’s hard to remember much but I know that they were… The New Republic- they were about to start raiding. Root out the remaining loyalists now that the emperor was dead and the army had scattered. Brendol showed up at mother’s house, full uniform, demanding to take me with him.” His brow dropped low, his mouth curled, and for a moment he resembled a skinnier, sicklier version of the man Kylo had seen in Brendol Hux’s file. “The Empire needs children.”

Hux relaxed his face. “We’d met before, Brendol and I. A few times when he was demanding _proof_ I was his. Mother couldn’t afford to-“ He gestured with the bottle in his hands as if that would relay what he couldn’t say, but the meaning was lost on Kylo. “I was sickly.” _Thin as a slip of paper and just as useless_ , Kylo heard Brendol’s voice echo in the silence of a breath. “We had this… terrible, tiny apartment in the capital. The roof leaked and there was mold in the walls. There was this… Advertisement. It was so bright we didn’t even need to turn the lights on at night. Pink. It had… constellations on it. I forget what they were selling.

“Brendol nearly kicked in the door. Mother- I remember them shouting but the particulars are gone. Something about… how she wouldn’t go with him. Neither of us would. That Organa would be sympathetic. But Brendol didn’t listen.”

Kylo felt his heart sinking and silently demanded it stop. It didn’t listen either.

Why was _he_ still listening to this? He should have been shouting at Hux five minutes ago.

“He tried to take me by force. I remember him…” he gestured with the bottle again, “wrenching my arm and knocking me against the doorframe. But she fought him. I remember being behind her when he pulled out his sidearm,” he mimed drawing his own weapon, but the blaster was missing from his hip. “And shot her.” He fired his imaginary blaster, “I…” he laughed, “I don’t know why I remember this but,” he held up his hand, palm open and facing away from him, staring between his thumb and forefinger out into the rest of the room. “I remember that I could see the constellations of the advertisement board through the hole in her face.”

Kylo wanted to interrupt him, but his voice had abandoned him. Instead, he was supplied with an image of Leia, standing between a smaller version of himself and some unknown villain, but he could see through her head too.

Why was Hux telling him this?

“Brendol grabbed me as soon as she hit the ground.” Hux pushed off from the desk and, to his credit, didn’t totter. Gesticulating with the bottle, he rambled on, “I was little and shrieking the whole time. I didn’t know better.” Kylo squinted but Hux kept the label turned away. “I was screaming for help, screaming for my mother because I was too little and stupid to realize she wasn’t getting back up. Then, just screaming and flailing and biting at him. He dropped me intentionally and said something threatening; like if I didn’t stop making noise I’d never be able to make a sound again, boy.” Hux snorted, an uncouth sound, “It was always _boy_. Never _son_ or _Armitage_ or _bastard_ or even _cadet_. It was just _boy._ Waifish boy, foolish boy, useless boy. Different adjectives. Same insult.”

He pulled the bottle back to his chest and tapped on it with his neatly trimmed fingernails. They shined in the light coming off the general’s desk; the only light in the dark room. “He dragged me onto that fucking starship with all those other poor bastards. Thirty years of my life…” his voice was getting louder now, shrill, hysterical, “and for what? Failure in the eleventh hour.” He pressed the bottle to the pinking skin of his forehead. “Fucking useless. And now _Ben Solo_ is Supreme Leader.”

Kylo, somewhere, knew that he should say something. That there should be rage inside him. But he couldn’t find it. This whole rant of Hux’s was like watching two TIEs collide with each other in a dogfight; he couldn’t look away, he couldn’t intervene. He could only stand by and let it happen.

“I remember the day he was born.” Hux wasn’t looking at him anymore. “Down to the hour. They broadcast it all over the galaxy. It’s a boy. Leia Organa’s baby is a boy. The first of a new generation under the Republic.” His mock cheer was nauseating to listen to just as the broadcasts that day had been for Hux. “Organa’d had a son, just like my mother had.” Another bitter laugh, “but no one was going to kick in her door to kill her and steal him away for a life of hardship and torment and fear. No. He got to leave on his own.”

That one hurt Kylo more than he’d expected it to. Like a burn that didn’t register until the skin was pulled away from the heat.”Hux,” he said, but it was too soft, from that core of him that was still Ben. Still sentimental. Still gentle from an easy, if empty, life Before and capable of being burned. Kylo tried to ignore it, but it was loud, squealing in pain like a small child demanding attention.

“He’s going to run us into the ground.” Hux said, as if he’d forgotten the subject of his rant was present in the room with him. “Everything we’ve worked for…”

He started to laugh, grating, like gravel in Kylo’s ears. A sound he wasn’t wholly in control of, or he probably would have stopped it before that first bark bubbled out of him. He was coming apart at the seams; Kylo could feel it now, stuffing seeping out between the stitches on an abused training dummy. The general’s aura, usually so neat and refined like the sharp lines of a star destroyer, was now jagged and frayed as threads pulled loose and unraveled it. There was a darkness there; a powerful all-consuming monster deep at its center; a black hole invisible on the other side of a star it was rapidly consuming, but Kylo knew it was there.

Kylo worried, briefly, what would happen when that blackness finally reached his vision. When the star was gone and nothing was between It and him. Would It suck him in too? Consume him despite his power and skill? Consume everyone around him until there was nothing left, not even dust?

He didn’t want to know.

“Hux!” he was shouting now. Demanding the man’s attention in a way Hux himself used to captivate others. The short, sharp _bang_ of military authority. It sounded strange on Kylo’s voice, which lacked Hux’s razorwire Imperial accent and crisp tone, but it got the job done.

Hux’s gaze snapped up to him with practiced obedience. Muscle memory acting when alcohol had seemingly numbed him to judgment. He blinked in surprise and Kylo could swear he could hear those darkened eyelids click together even from this distance. When was the last time Hux slept in a bed? Starkiller? He wondered if Hux even remembered. “Oh- mm” Hux cleared his throat awkwardly. “Forgive me… I got a little carried away.” He straightened his back and looked a little more like himself aside from the glassiness of his bloodshot eyes and flush face. “You wanted something, Supreme Leader?”

Kylo still couldn’t find his rage from earlier, it was just on the edges of his consciousness, taunting him, and instead the spaces had been filled with trepidation; fear and curiosity in equal measure. Curiosity about what would happen next. Fear of that blackness, that deeper-than-Darkness thing Hux was concealing so poorly. “It can wait,” Kylo said slowly, his voice soft and low, as if that terrible thing could reach out and grab him if it had been made aware of his presence. “Until next cycle. You should… you should get some sleep. You’re clearly exhausted and… drunk.”

_Every word of what you just said was wrong._

Kylo wasn’t sure if it was his own inner voice warning him or an echo of his uncle mocking him. But it brought a spark of his rage back so he didn’t really care. He could sort that out later, when the edge of that black hole wasn’t reaching out around Hux toward him. Kylo rooted himself on the spot, not wanting it to draw him in but too proud to flee from it.

“I think now is the time, Ren.” Hux said, like he knew what Kylo was seeing and understood its meaning better than Kylo did. The tone was what stung him most, what sent him to scanning the room for Hux’s missing sidearm. But either his grip on the Force was clumsy in his anxiety or he just couldn’t find it anywhere in the general’s quarters. But that was ridiculous. It _had_ to be here.

“Ren?” Hux was insistent now. He didn’t sound drunk anymore. The voice Hux had put on possessed a looping, sing-song quality. This just sounded like he was sinking. Resigned, light, and tired. So, so tired.

Kylo kept scanning. It had to be here. What else would he use-

“Ren?” Hux’s throat clicked when he swallowed.

Kylo could rip a blaster out of Hux’s hands at fifty meters. Stop the shot before it left the barrel if he fucking had to; it’d burn the general, probably stick him in bacta for a while, but this… He couldn’t stop this now. It was so late already. Hux had deceived him to buy himself time and again Kylo was watching the TIE collision only this time it was someone he _knew_ , someone he was _invested in_ , trapped inside with no life support.

The black hole was getting bigger and darker.

Hux was covering the label of the bottle with his hands.

Kylo wanted to call it to him, but the thing consuming Hux’s aura overpowered his commands. Even the Force couldn’t hear him through its vacuum. “How long have you been drinking?” Kylo said in a desperate bid at normalcy. To pretend it wasn’t fear gripping his chest but insult and frustration over Hux’s irresponsibility and disrespect.

“I don’t drink on-vessel, Ren. You know this.” Hux said back, no formalities. “What is it you wanted? While there’s still time.”

Kylo, honestly, couldn’t remember. His mind had a singular focus and it had long since dropped what had brought him here. Now all it wanted was to come up with a plan. Something to do when Hux’s eyes rolled back in his head and he finally crumpled to the floor. Some way to stop the Order from losing a general so soon after losing its previous Leader. To stop Kylo from losing someone he knew could get a job done in a crisis, could take over if Kylo was fool enough to get himself killed. Someone fit to be at his side, worthy of the station because he’d earned it, fought for it, suffered for it, and had the blackness in his heart to prove it.

“Ren, why are you here?”

His mind ticked through a list of things he could do. He could still fix this. Stop it from falling apart. But it was like spinning plates on sticks and some of them were wobbling at dangerous angles already. He couldn’t decide which one to start with. _I can still call the medbay._

Hux blinked at him and Ren realized he’d said that aloud. “Don’t” was all he said.

“Fuck you,” Kylo spit back. It was selfish. Childish. _How fucking dare he?_ Now of all times, when the Order was still in a state of upheaval, when victory was still so, so close. _Now_ the man had chosen to give up. To take the cowards’ way out. To- to- to-

The black hole was starting to unravel him too.

“I won’t let this happen,” Kylo said with finality.

“I know, Supreme Leader.”

“I’ll have your head for this,” He threatened, simply because he wanted to.

Hux didn’t respond, only watched him. His eyes were starting to go foggy, the pupils blowing wide. The pink of his face a stark contrast to the sickly yellow he’d been sporting before Crait, was starting to darken where his skin was thinner. A purple-blue twinge was creeping into his lips. He took several slow, deep breaths, concentration written plainly on his face as he struggled to keep his breathing even but panic was welling up in his eyes. Kylo had seen that kind of panic before, many times; the powerless fear in the face of the inevitable.

Kylo, for the first time since its destruction, longed for his mask. That way, at least, he’d know what Hux was seeing instead of having to hope his face stayed impassive.

The general’s jaw was shaking so hard Kylo could see it from six feet away.

“Did you do this to spite me?” Kylo demanded, grateful to have his rage returning to him. Rage was manageable. Rage was comfortable. Easy. “To undermine my authority? To challenge my role?”

“No.”

It was true and Kylo hated him for it.

“What did you _want_ , Ren?”

Kylo’s resolve buckled. “To put eyes on you,” he said, not certain of its truth when he’d walked in but certain of it now when it was too late to matter just like everything else he’d ever felt for others.

Hux’s lip curled but whether it would settle into a smirk or a sneer, Kylo might never know.

The bottle shattered when it hit the floor. Kylo hadn’t been able to focus quickly enough to catch it too.

*~*~*

Kylo fought to keep his head straight, his mind level, and his rage in check while the _Finalizer’s_ medical crew went to work.

The medics told him in shaky voices, their datapads held over their chests like useless little shields, that the general had been poisoned. Cyanide, subtle but horribly effective in its way; under everyone’s radar because of its reputation as archaic and unreliable.  They tried to take Hux with them to the medbay, but they were easy to turn away from that path; the general was better suited to resting in his own bed, especially if there was an assassin in their midst. With visible reluctance, they acquiesced, not that they had much of a choice and put a monitor in Hux’s arm that would alert the medbay if his vital signs dipped dangerously, just to be safe.

They asked him if he’d seen anyone entering or leaving Hux’s quarters before his arrival and, when he said no, vowed that the culprit would be captured. With a wave of his hand Kylo Ren convinced them that such a man hunt would not be necessary and that he had it under control.

The little cluster of medics scurried away after that.

Alone, save for the comatose man, Kylo took the next logical step in handling this situation: wrecking Hux’s office. This _bastard_. That _selfish prick_. After everything that had happened- He’d just gotten into power and now Hux wanted to _jump ship like a coward._ And to think he might have actually respected the man at some point. _That motherfucker._ He should have told the medics. No, Hux did this to himself. Yes, he needs to go to reconditioning upon awakening. Yes he needs to be reassigned. The worthless-

When he finally stopped, panting, in the middle of Hux’s office, surrounded by half-melted rubble, Kylo realized just how much he didn’t know. Hux had claimed his poisoning wasn’t to spite Kylo’s role, and he’d been telling the truth. Which left the question of why wide open.

He called for the cleaning droids and replacements for Hux’s desk and sofa. He sat on the floor, legs crossed, his back against the closed sliding door that separated Hux’s bedroom from his office. He breathed in the deep, inky shadows and tried to match the rhythm Hux set in his sleep. He listened; but could find nothing of Hux’s in the sounds around him. He heard stormtroopers wandering the hall, the distant rumble of the _Finalizer’s_ engine, but from the bed, there was just that quiet, churning black hole and no light escaping.

There had to be answers and Kylo would be damned if he left without getting them. If he couldn’t take them from Hux in his sleep, he’d force them out once the man roused.

When the crew left, Hux’s office was even more spartan than before. Only the desk had been replaced but with a sharp-edged black metal model rather than the smoked-glass topped custom Hux preferred. A pair of extra desk chairs made up for the obliterated sofa.  On the desk was a single datapad and a metal box. It looked on the surface like a stormtrooper mess kit, a silver rectangle with rounded corners, but it was thinner and flatter than the boxes stored under the seats of transport vessels. Curious and bored with waiting for Hux to wake up, Kylo cracked it open. It was a field ration; compressed calorie bars, instant caf, some clean drinking water, and vitamin tablets. Enough to get a person through a day when meals weren’t an option, quick and minimal effort to eat, but it wasn’t a real substitute for actual food.

Kylo blinked at the shining metal, pulling out one of the ration bar and breaking it into bits inside the packaging like he’d seen ‘troopers do in-flight; uncertain what to make of this. He shoved the broken bar into his pocket for later.

The datapad, naturally, was next on the list of ‘Things of Hux’s to Poke Around In’. Kylo powered it on and used his passcode to try to unlock it. He got an error message, the First Order insignia flashing bright red at the top: _Security Protocol Error 33241. Invalid User._ Brow furrowing, he tried again with his security override and got the same error. He tried _Hux’s_ universal security override and got a different error. _Security Protocol Error 83013: Improper Identification Passcode. Please Submit Thumbprint Scan or Proper Passcode to continue._

So Hux used his personal data for work now? Of course he would. Damn his impatience in not getting the security features turned over to him prior to Crait. A few deep breaths through his nose, and he centered himself enough to avoid cracking the datapad in half in frustration. He switched over to the thumbprint scanner.

Hux’s bedroom wasn’t much, arguably less than his office. He still had all the default furniture; a metal bedframe with a thin, single mattress, a nightstand with built-in chrono, a black and silver footlocker with his name and identification number on the side in white paint was shoved under the foot of his bed. Across from the office were a pair of mirrored doors to a closet, and the sliding door to a small refresher. Kylo let his eyes make two passes around the room and realized Hux’s quarters, overall, were smaller than his own.

Hux himself looked even sicker than he had when the poison kicked in. Nearly skeletal without his uniform to bulk him out; the medics had cut it off him. Bones threatened to poke through skin at every joint Kylo could see. Eyes flickered behind sunken, bruised lids. The pink flush had faded from his skin to leave only a freckled, sickly grey behind. It was impressive how a man could be asleep and still look so exhausted. He stirred a little when Kylo took his arm, mindful of the module imbedded just below his elbow. The white display showed his temperature (colder than normal), his heart rate (higher than normal), and his blood oxygen content (low, but out of danger). Hux’s blood was nearly black in the tube that ran down the side of the module. Little vials glittered in the dim light; a stimulant, a muscle relaxant, an antihistamine, a mood elevator, and nonstandard fifth vial that Kylo assumed to be more of the antidote the medics had pumped Hux full of.

The datapad dinged approvingly and Kylo released Hux’s hand.

Dragging a chair into Hux’s sleeping quarters, Kylo plopped down, propping his booted feet on the metal bedframe.

Upon arriving in the First Order half a decade ago, Kylo Ren learned two things: the first was how much he enjoyed the environment which had surprised him. Everything was structured, even the thoughts were clean lines, and it was easy to block out; a dull hum of whispered conversation opposed to the shouting and paranoia he’d just come from. The second was how much one could learn about an officer based on their Universal User Interface for their network accounts. Especially if one could check a person’s personal datapad.

Hux’s UUI was very _Hux_. Streamlined and efficient in gunmetal grey. The home screen was a full blueprint of the _Finalizer_ , lights blinking as security checks were run and completed. Down the side was a list of applications of which Hux had only six.

A blueprints feature that he apparently used to upgrade various ship and weapon designs; the last one saved was a modification for his personal blaster. There was another one that was password protected, but if Kylo squinted the thumbnail looked suspiciously like his TIE Silencer prototype.

A drafts folder that held rough outlines for speeches, briefings, presentations, and mission reports for archiving; much of it was typed but unfinished documents had handwritten notes in a bright red. Hux had handwriting so scraggly and rushed that it offended Kylo on a personal level. The man was an insult to the written word.

Hux’s inbox had over a thousand new messages from the last cycle alone and Kylo felt his heart rate pick up just looking at them. Page after page of color coded correspondence, much of it angry and demanding answers regarding what happened on board the _Supremacy_ at the time of the Snoke’s demise. Many of them were starting to get nasty and sited protocols relating to dereliction of duty. Except one, coded in a pastel pink that didn’t have a return address or a subject line, dated and timed to just before they landed on Crait. _Armitage._ It said when Kylo opened it, _Remember your orders. Survive and Rebuild. -Godspeed, R._

The next two applications were straightforward: access to the security feed and a scheduler. The general’s schedule was backlogged to hell; every hour was full except for three set aside for sleep during the skeleton shifts. He’d scheduled beyond the current cycle, which was a relief. Whatever happened a few hours ago _wasn’t_ planned. Kylo scrolled backward after that, every day like the one that followed it; three hours for sleep, every other packed to bursting with meetings, paper work, responding to messages and laying down plans. Until he got to the before day they fired Starkiller; five hours for sleep, two half hours for meals, and four fifteen minute breaks sprinkled throughout.

The last application was a surprise. A little pocket pet game that had been a fad back on Starkiller a year ago; it’s little pink tab a stark contrast to the utilitarian grey of the rest of it. Kylo had never gotten into it, but had heard enough about it to get the gist; one acquired pets and raised them from infancy to adulthood and earned tokens and trophies as their pets grew and how happy they were kept.

Hux’s was a fluffy saber-toothed feline with massive paws that was chewing on a large pink ball of yarn when Kylo opened the app. It was a giant poof of orange and white fur with big green eyes. The name _Millicent_ was in the bottom banner below all the other features. Running his finger over the screen he picked up the little ball of yarn and the tiny orange fluffball made a grumpy rumbling noise, paws flailing in the air as it tried to retrieve its toy.

Hux didn’t seem to keep anything too deeply personal on his datapad; no music, no holos, no holonet search history to be gone through. Perfunctory and professional, which struck Kylo as odd. Everyone had _something_ damning saved on their personal devices. Hells, Kylo himself had the names of his knights on his, blueprints for his modified saber, pieces of ancient texts Ben Solo had scribed that he tried to copy from memory before it was blotted out by other teachings to maintain perspective and lessen any lingering doubts.

Maybe this wasn’t Hux’s personal device, just a work one linked to his account. Which begged the question: where was the original?

Setting the datapad in his vacated chair, Kylo poked around Hux’s bedroom, quieter than he might have been if he was alone, but he wasn’t exactly opposed to waking the man up. Not that he could if he tried. A poisoning like the one the medics had described would knock a man Hux’s size out for at least a cycle.

The first place to look had been under the mattress, which was easy enough to lift from the frame even with Hux still on it. Nothing. Next, was the nightstand, but again, Kylo was only met with the same items that had greeted him when he’d first been assigned to the _Finalizer_ : a box of tissues, cold remedies, data sticks, a bottle of clear med-gel that everyone in the Order pretended wasn’t used for _personal_ purposes (unopened), a small set of tools for quick droid or furniture repair. The only item unique to Hux seemed to be a half empty pack of cigarettes and ancient-looking flip lighter.

Kylo made a thoughtful noise and closed the drawer. The space beneath it held a folding metal bootjack and hooks but nothing else.

The closet contained uniforms, about six cycles’ worth, standard issue sleepwear, extra boots, belts, gloves, and overcoat. Kylo, after a little more poking around than was probably necessary found that he couldn’t even find Hux’s Academy medals and it filled him with that same sinking feeling he’d had when he first saw the darkness in between the ragged edges of Hux’s aura.

Now he was just looking for _anything_ personal. Hux’s custom desk hadn’t had drawers. Destroying the sofa hadn’t turned up any eye-catching valuables. The refresher had only the standard-issue supplies every soldier received in their toiletry kit. Nothing unique or imported from the colonized planets, not even Hux’s homeworld.

Which left only Hux’s footlocker. There _had_ to be something in there. It slid across the floor with ease when Kylo called it to him. Too much ease in fact and it knocked him in the shin with a hollow _thunk_ and a little bit of rattling. He broke the locks off and flung it open. It was empty save for a few black boxes at the bottom. Which felt like they were empty too when Kylo moved them. No false bottom. Nothing on the inside of the lid. Just… nothing. Kylo didn’t realize that he’d been hoping the velvet box of Hux’s medals had been in here, until he noted its absence.

Kylo sank to the floor slowly. It didn’t make any sense. Surely Hux _had_ personal effects. There was no way a man with as storied an academic carrier _didn’t_ have a keepsake or two at least. Items obtained through blackmail or as congratulatory gifts. Celebratory items when a particularly difficult challenge had been conquered. Where were they?

He pulled out one of the boxes, just for something to do with his hands. Heavy, insulated, but soft enough that it could take a beating without damaging the contents inside; it opened down the middle and was sealed with two pieces of cell-tape. One on either side. Kylo hooked his thumb under one and pulled it open. Inside was the faint relief of some irregular shape. The words: _X-Contingency_ written in a silver version of Hux’s chicken-scratch.

And that was when it hit him.

The box had been for Hux’s cross-section model of the _Contingency._ Kylo remembered, vaguely, asking about it around the time he met Hux and how proud the man had been to explain that he’d made it himself, and it had taken years to find all the right pieces. He’d kept it on display on a shelf behind his work desk.

On Starkiller.

Kylo tried to recall what Hux’s quarters on Starkiller had looked like, but he hadn’t seen the whole space and what he did see had been well over a year ago. Their meetings better suited to conference rooms, the audience chamber, the command center or, better yet, the _Finalizer_. But he could remember pieces; the model of the _Contingency_ sitting between two glittering crystal awards for victory at the Arkanis Academy war games. His desk had been the same smoked glass affair he’d had here, but with a custom chair as well. Hux had had books, _paper_ books stowed under the desk with a gold print along the spine Kylo couldn’t read but assumed was High Imperial. A small display case of weapons; antique blasters from the Old Empire, monomolecular blades that bordered on being works of art dominated the wall opposite the door.  He remembered a heavy quilt draped over a double bed when he’d peeked into Hux’s bedroom while the man’s back was turned; its icy blue lining bright enough to arrest one’s attention in the otherwise comfortably dark space.

Kylo put the box back and shut the footlocker gently.

*~*~*

A loud constant howl, like the keening death knell of some massive hidden beast nearly deafened him. Wind whipped in a looping, inconsistent circle over top the unsteady water that kept him barely afloat. It lapped at his skin as he dipped low, never enough to completely submerge but close. Always close. Close enough that he was forced to breathe through his nose. Close enough that the howling of the wind would muffle into the thrum of his own pulse more often than he could actually hear it. When he looked around, all he could see was vast, depthless black, so he kept his eyes closed.

The water pricked unnaturally cold against his skin like a thousand tiny shocks to his palms, wrists, and fingers, slipping up the sleeves of his coat. It had made his ears numb and was, slowly but surely, seeping into the rest of him.

Beneath the water, a shape moved. He could feel it in the occasional pressure against his back that made him break the surface just a little more; just enough to gulp down a breath. It circled around him and dipped under him, inching inward each time, breaking the water enough to send waves across his neck or up his sides. It would sink back down and let the waves settle, watching, waiting for him to move even the slightest amount so it could track him, sink its teeth in and pull him fully under once and for all. The creature brushed his hands and the soles of his feet and it felt like a thousand tiny pins being twisted and drawn out wherever it touched leaving a stinging itch in their wake.

Kylo fought the urge to dive down and observe the creature, to meet it head-on. There was a time for that sort of thing and it was not now. Instead he breathed and listened and waited. But he came up empty.

Slipping deeper into the water, the cold pricked at his face and ruffled his hair. His ears burned enough to make his eyes sting. He let the weight of his boots drag him down deeper, sinking slow, too slow to alert his bestial companion. The water pressed in on him, shards of ice mixed in stabbing at him, turning the water to slush deeper down. Something was at the bottom, he knew it.

His boots touched solid ice. He opened his eyes, a bright white light shone from below, glistening on the slush like thousands of distant, tiny stars. He looked down, light stinging his eyes. There were cracks in the clear ice; beyond he could see a blue sky, and impossibly bright sunshine. Muffled voices were calling out to him. Instinctively, he stomped on the ice, his heel connecting with the crack, but his movements too sluggish to do real damage.

He dropped to his knees. Reaching out he felt the brittle, smooth ice- no- It wasn’t ice. It wasn’t even cold. He was looking out a _viewport_. The planet was beyond recognizing. Nothing for miles where he was except clear, open sky, the sun directly above him.

His lungs were starting to burn from holding his breath.

He punched the barrier. Nothing.

Something brushed against the back of his neck; a smooth oblong shape. He tried to ignore it. Then it went through his hair, like long nimble fingers combing through the curls.  He turned his head up; blackness swirling with something deeper. Something worse than shadows. An absence of light, not just the obstruction of it.

Planting his feet, he pushed off from the wall, cutting through water and slush. The shape in the water spotted him, circled him, closing in as he made a break for the surface. He broke free with a deep breath and open eyes, and he was back in Hux’s quarters.

He stood, stretching out an hour’s worth of stillness from his limbs trying to parse out his vision. He was missing something. He hadn’t seen enough. The pieces were there, but there were still holes in his picture.

Hux had curled on his side at some point while Kylo was meditating. He’d balled up under the blanket and Kylo’s cloak, but at least he’d stopped shivering. By the looks of his monitor he’d spiked a mild fever but the last medic who came in said it wasn’t high enough to worry about just yet.

Kylo plopped back down in the chair, putting his heels on the bedframe and rocking the chair back as far as it would go and then a little more, keeping himself balanced at an impossible angle. This waiting was the worst part. The dread he could handle, confrontation was even better, but this silent, stoic waiting was killing him slowly just as it had killed Ben Solo.

It felt, strangely, like his first few encounters with Hux.

Joining the Order was, in the harshest of terms, an exercise in patience he had not truly possessed. He’d been waiting for hours; burned at the edges, in new black robes given to him by Snoke. He’d left his saber behind and the _Falcon_. Everything felt too big and too small all at once and anxiety came off the other students in waves. He’d done this to them, _for_ them, he’d damn well better deliver. And he was trying to, truly, but they’d reached the end of his plan and things were still going. Still barreling into the void.

They’d separated on the _Supremacy_. Kylo would start his training under a new name and then relay his lessons to the others, learning through teaching as much as his trials, until he thought they were ready to set out on their own.  Before they’d even settled, Snoke shipped him to a prospective Starkiller planet to help make the decisions about colonization and clear lifeforms so construction might begin.

He’d seen Hux only in passing that time; his work wasn’t with the man yet. That would come later. He was being whisked away by the engineering team when he’d seen the man, straight-backed and tall, red hair sticking out among the sea of black and white. He’d been younger then, just scraping the bottom of thirty, but had the face of a cadet. The dark circles weren’t quite so deep, his skin not quite as sallow, but possessed of a healthy freckled fairness. The man was _pretty_. He looked fragile, like an expensive heirloom doll waiting to be knocked off a shelf and shattered. Kylo reached out and felt for him; frigid steel and bitterly sharp determination. Surrounding him, an aura of devotion so fanatical one would think he led a cult instead of an army.

Kylo was _immediately_ taken with him.

It was why, as soon as he was alone, he drudged up everything he could about the man. FO network profile, professional dossier, interviews with him during the war games and later. Anything and everything he could get his hands on.

The first meeting had gone smoothly enough, despite the wary doubt that surrounded Hux like a foul stink in his clothes. Kylo had worn his mask the whole time, feigning concern about his identity being leaked when really he just wanted to get a read on Hux before showing his face. He didn’t learn much more than the dossier had given him, but fell deeper into the pit of schoolboy crush all the same. Hux was articulate, sharp voiced and calm under pressure. Nothing surprised him and there was nothing he didn’t have an answer to. He didn’t stammer, he didn’t mumble, he didn’t cower or flinch. Fearless, ruthless, precise. A sharp blade to cut down the First Order’s enemies given a human shape.

He was so smart, painfully intelligent and just being around him made Kylo feel like a fool and a child. It frustrated him endlessly.

And then Hux saw his face. The wave of hatred hit Kylo like a TIE at top speed and might have staggered him a step if he hadn’t been bracing for it. It wasn’t disgust though, not at first at least, like Kylo was expecting. No. It was something else. A much deeper wound turned fetid from lack of care. Something that frothed at the mouth and snapped at the air between them. He saw Hux mouth the word “Organa” and he understood.

Hux knew who he was. And hated him for it.

Kylo lost his grip and fell harder. So hard, in fact, he’d requested reassignment. First, it had been for Hux. Then, when Snoke said no for perfectly valid reasons Kylo had little choice but to agree with, it had been for himself. And, that time, he’d gotten his way.

He didn’t handle heartbreak well, he and Snoke both knew this, and if Hux had managed to notice; to take advantage, Snoke would be out a knight _and_ a general. So it worked out best for everyone. More or less. Kylo’s return to Starkiller, though anticlimactic and without pomp, had still felt like a knife to the gut when he saw the general in the hanger. He was all copper and steel and beautiful as ever. And Kylo was grateful for the mask, no matter how many dirty looks Hux gave him, since at least he could gaze on the man with impunity so long as he kept his head at the right angle.

Eventually, he’d learned to snuff out the warm feeling. Turn it into embers and rage. Hux wasn’t good enough for him. He was _dirt_. Kylo deserved someone of his own caliber. He shouldn’t be wasting his time on someone like-

He came back into reality just in time to catch himself before the back of his chair hit the ground. He pushed himself back up so all four legs were firmly planted on the floor.

_Why are you here, Ren?_

Kylo furrowed his brow and tried to think of an answer to the question still echoing in his head. Hux’s clipped tones making him grind his back teeth. _Because you weren’t answering your comm._ When he blinked he saw the crack in the viewport leading out to that clear day behind his eyelids. Kylo kept his eyes closed. He could hear the sound beyond it now. Asking the questions. He strained to listen.

_Why were you calling me?_

Kylo fought with this one, but he knew the answer now. It was an acrid thing that made his chest hurt, like downing a shot glass full of vinegar. Hux didn’t deserve this from him.

“I wanted to apologize,” he said to the room, through the crack, into the open air. Why did he still feel like this? Why was there still feeling, still that dull ache, when the anger was gone? Wasn’t Snoke supposed to be training that out of him? Kylo laughed. Like Snoke had even really been training him; hindsight showed him the truth, much as it had with Luke.

There were no follow-up questions.

*~*~*

Thoughts wander. He’d been prone to bouts of daydreaming as a boy, some visions some not, and Luke had tried to get him to focus with more and more mindless activities. Saber training, teaching, calligraphy and cartography. Hobbies, tasks, chores. Anything to keep his mind in the present and his anger managed. Snoke had tried a similar tack; sending him out in combat, out for interrogations, always with something to _do_ or to _look for_. There was never a truly long, quiet moment in his life if his masters, family, or comrades could avoid it. The shuttle ride into the Order was the last one he could remember, and even that had come with instructions from Snoke to stay focused and be prepared for anything.

But now there was nothing to distract him. No master to give him lessons or orders. No emergencies to contend with. Just silence and waiting for conflict to reenter his life. In the past, he thought the idea of being totally free would be liberating, but instead he just felt hindered. Shackled. Weighted down instead of cut loose.

He rested his arms on Hux’s bed, his cheek against his crossed forearms, and watched the shape of the slight man toss and turn beneath the blankets. He was so small, so frail, so breakable- no, that wasn’t true. Hux bruised easily, but it took more to break him. Even on his knees, the breath choked out of him, his spine was still solid, his mind still ticking like clockwork looking for a way to survive, to swallow the poison now and the antidote later. He reached out a hand and touched the general’s hip over the blankets. Hux shifted away from the contact.

His jaw clenched, his hand fisted around the fabric of his cloak, knuckles going white. He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths through his nose. Part of him wanted to tug Hux back, but he knew better. The movement wasn’t intentional. Wasn’t spiteful.

He’d long played with the idea of approaching the general, despite the man’s seething hatred of him, just to see what would happen. Snoke had advised against worldly attachments, particularly when it came to people. _Especially_ the Force Blind. They would only disappoint him, Snoke had said, just as Ben’s family and friends. There was no point in seeking such contact.

Kylo pushed himself up on his elbows, raking his eyes over Hux’s sleeping form. The rumpled mess of his hair, the product long since worked out. Streaks of premature grey speckled along his hairline, usually meticulously hidden. His color had returned, though his skin had seen better days between the poison, medicine, and fever. Stubble lined his jaw.

The bruises on his neck were almost completely gone now save for two stubborn points on either side of his windpipe which were still a hazy brown. The ones on his side and arm from where Ren had thrown him in the _Upsilon_ were still visible. He grazed his fingers over the worst of it, soaking in the warmth of Hux’s skin, the wiry, solid muscle and bone made strong from years of factures and healings beneath. He closed his hand around Hux’s wrist, finding it fit quite well in the palm of his hand.

Kylo reconsidered his approach idea. Maybe he didn’t need to go the traditional routes. The romance and flirtation, wooing and whatnot. All the things he’d been terrible at in both of his lives. He was Supreme Leader now. The Force bent to his will. Why not Hux too? Hell, if he tried hard enough, Hux could even be persuaded regardless of prior hatred. He released Hux’s wrist and trailed his fingers up his tawny dusted skin to his elbow.

His thoughts wandered into the realm of hypotheticals as his hand kept up its journey along Hux’s arm.

Hux would resist him, would fight tooth and nail at first. He was scrappy too, vicious and hellbent on survival, but protected his precious air of dignity with everything he had. He would rather die than suffer an unwanted advance. He’d retaliate, blaster, dagger, short nails and straight teeth, but he would relent eventually. Kylo only needed to pull on the right threads; he’d felt something akin to interest in the man a few times, a lusting after a power he could not control. Those would be the roads Kylo would walk down, the ones he would leave open as he blocked out all others. There would be bruises, blood, but the knight would claim his prize. A conquest. For what was Hux if not a central star to the galaxy that was the First Order; a thing for lesser men to worship, smarter men to draw power and inspiration from. A thing for men like Kylo to consume.

He imagined how it would happen, drawing back into himself to explore the possibilities. When would he start? As soon as Hux woke, while he was still too weak to put up much of a fight? No. No that wouldn’t be earned. He’d be taking advantage and his prize would be squandered. A duel is not really a duel unless both combatants are at their best.

He’d wait until Hux recovered. Twist his arm with the Supreme Leader’s authority to listen to the medics and recover back to the health he’d had at Starkiller’s firing. The same rousing speeches and fiery charisma; the height of his beauty and influence, the blood of the Republic still wet on his hands. He could picture it. Hux in the sharp lines of his uniform, coat foregone, its security unnecessary. Hux would be working sporadic shifts, like he always did. Kylo would catch him when only the skeleton crew was active, the ship largely empty; maybe in a lift, or in a doorway. Some isolated confined space where, if Kylo advanced, Hux would have no choice but to back up. No skirting around, no shoulder check, just a concession of ground.

Hux would have his hands full; a datapad, another cog in his ever-constant work, checking his thousand-plus messages, keeping things running smoothly no matter what wrenches Kylo threw into his well-oiled machine. Contingencies. The blaster would sit on his hip, in no need of priming or charge. The dagger in his sleeve ready for an emergency. Murder in his bright green eyes.

“Supreme Leader,” he’d say. Put upon even when in the presence of a superior; a habit that had not left him since the academy. He was always too good for other people’s work. Too good for new assignments. Even with his back against the wall, his breathing shallow, his eyes darting around for a route of egress.

“General” His voice carried less authority unmasked; it was delicate to his own ear unless he was shouting. And this was neither the time nor the place for loud noises. He’d press in, scanning Hux’s surface thoughts; anxiety, concern, annoyance, but not fear. Not yet.

Hux would find a way to set down the datapad; a room would offer him a better excuse. A place to put it. But Kylo couldn’t imagine him being above just dropping the damn thing to get his hands free. “Is there something you need?” The air of formality still there even when nothing about this situation was formal. His hands would clench and unclench at his sides, ready and waiting. His eyes would stay set, jaw tense. Winding up like a spring.

“Need?” Kylo heard his voice echo. “No. There’s nothing I need. Want, though. I could make a list.”

He could hear the vitriolic comeback in Hux’s thoughts. That Kylo’s wants weren’t his job. But the general wouldn’t say that out loud. Instead he’d say, “If there’s nothing you need-“ and he’d try to get away.

Kylo would stop him with a hand on the wall just above Hux’s shoulder. Hux would shy from it, but not cower. He’d be silent. Kylo would box him in.

“Ren…” the formality gone now, the sharp bite of his voice receding into ill-tempered warning. It reminded Kylo of the holos he’d seen of Hux’s father barking at young cadets. But without the same uncouth warhound visage. “What are you doing?” There’d be nowhere for him to go; only the wall at his back, Kylo’s arms on either side of him, the bulk of the knight boxing him in. He’d be vibrating with anxiety and rage, a flush creeping over his face. His right hand would go for his blaster.

Kylo would take him by the wrist and disarm him, pinning the general’s hand to the wall beside his head.

The left would come at him with the dagger concealed behind his stripes, using his pinned wrist as a pivot point. Kylo would give him a step, then pin that hand to the wall too.

“Ren-“ growling now, through clenched teeth. “What are you doing? Get off-“

Then he’d force his way in, stop the general short with a sharp pain behind his eyes, searching. Looking for those scraps that he’d felt in passing. Flashes and sparks in the audience chamber, lights glowing under the mask of disgust. He’d find them, deep, under the unintentional barriers Hux would throw up in his mind and tug as hard as he could.

Hux would strain against him. “Get out-“ Shouting now.

“You want me.”

“Get out!” He’d struggle, thoughts scrambling, trying to focus on his close quarters training, on the shift patterns to see if someone would help him. Anything, _anything_ but the thoughts Kylo was forcibly bringing to the forefront of his mind.

Kylo would press him bodily to the wall, bury his nose in the crook of Hux’s neck. No cologne, no scented soaps, just the faintly astringent scent of his aftershave, hair products, and the starch in his collar. “I can make you like it,” he’d growl into Hux’s pulse point, “Want it. On some level you already do. I can feel it, that hunger. You wonder how it would feel to have the most powerful man in the galaxy inside you.”

“You’re a monster.” It wouldn’t be pitiful. It wouldn’t even be resigned. It would be _patient_.

“So are you.” He’d force Hux’s legs apart and slide his thigh between them, roughly pressing upward until he wrenched a noise of discomfort from the man.

Hux started laughing.

Kylo blinked at the patch of wall behind the man’s neck. Wait- this wasn’t supposed to happen. Hux was supposed to bite him in the neck, draw blood, fight him off and get all of three steps before Kylo was on him again. He reared back to look at Hux. The man was still laughing, eyes dark, those tendrils of void that kept chasing him swirling like a living thing within his blown pupils. His teeth were clenched and the laugh came out muffled and awkward.

Alarmed, Kylo refused to let him go. “Hux?”

“This is cheap,” This thing wearing Hux’s shape said. “Even for you.” And he wrenched his hands free with an unnatural strength. “You call this victory? You haven’t earned this. You’re fucking pathetic.” There was something odd in his voice. Something distinctly Not Hux but still eerily familiar all the same. “You couldn’t win, so you forcibly take a consolation prize?” He pressed his hands to Kylo’s chest and shoved, laughing again but it was wrong. Out of tune almost, like a corrupted audio file. Caught unawares, Kylo stumbled backward, trying to catch himself. But the floor ended abruptly behind his heel. He tumbled backward into frigid water and slush and sank to the bottom like a stone, light beyond the cracked viewport rushing up to meet him, stars in the ice bursting into existence, while that many-armed black hole chased him down.

*~*~*

Something tugged on his hair. Gentle, just behind his right ear. He felt the soft press of fingertips against his scalp, combing through the strands, collecting a lock around a finger. Another, sharper tug that might have pulled his hair out at the root if it wasn’t all tangled together. It moved his head up a bit. With a soft grunt, Kylo lifted his head properly and forced his eyes open.

He was still resting against the edge of Hux’s bed, his arms folded. For a moment he thought he could feel ice water dripping down the side of his neck. But no, it was dry, something else was skating across his skin in retreat. Fingertips. He rubbed at his bleary, ice-stung eyes with the heel of one hand and pushed back fully into his chair with the other.

Hux was sitting up in his bed; legs pulled up to his chest, his back to the wall. His lower half was still concealed by the blankets. His hair was hastily combed down but still rumpled and oily. He looked so tired, despite having spent so much time sleeping.

Kylo had prepared answers. Used it to occupy his time after that first hypothetical went so awry. He’d tried to anticipate every question Hux might ask; how long had he been out? What had happened on the ship while he was out? What next? And he’d practiced answers for all of them. Impatient and in need to recover from being caught asleep at his post, Kylo stood and gave the answers without waiting for questions. Hux had been out a cycle, nothing had happened on the ship, and he was to take three days of medical leave and follow the orders of whatever physician came to check on him.

When he’d finally stopped ranting, Hux was giving him a strange look. “Ren, I’d like to ask you a question.”

Kylo couldn’t think of any other information Hux would want to know. “You may.”

“Why am I still here?”

Kylo took a deep breath, prepared to answer the question of why _he_ was here and only managed to stop himself at the last second. “Wait what?” Surely he must have misheard. Why would Hux be asking if-

“Why am _I_ still here?” Hux said with a bit more force. “I should be in Reconditioning.”

A pit opened up in Ren’s chest. “Reconditioning?” he echoed and felt incredibly stupid for having done so.

“It’s protocol.” Hux explained like it was common knowledge. It probably was, “My judgment’s been lacking, my performance underwhelming, I tried to kill myself-“

“Not purposely,” Kylo tried to argue, Hux had said as much. He’d been telling the truth. But Hux just plowed right on.

“I should have been sent to barracks as soon as I was stabilized. Did the medics not tell you?”

He shook his head, both to answer the question and to collect himself. Kylo wasn’t about to send him away, certainly not now. Hux was too integral to his holdings, too well-liked by his soldiers, too well known, well-spoken, well-everything. The army needed a general with those traits and Hux had earned that position, a trip to Reconditioning would take that from him. Would take him from his post. Would take him from Kylo’s side.

“No.”

Hux blinked at him. “ _No_? Ren, I have to go. I _wrote_ the protocol. It applies to everyone. If you don’t turn me in, I will.”

“No you won’t.” He sank back into his chair

“What are you going to do?” Hux taunted, “Choke me and throw me across the room if I try to go?”

A bubble of rage welled up in him and Hux’s mattress scooted a few inches away. The frame might have moved too if it hadn’t been bolted to the floor. Hux stiffened but didn’t scramble away even as half the thin foam was hanging off the frame. Kylo curled his lip in a snarl and pulled it back to rights. “I might.”

There was glint in Hux’s eye that demanded he try.

Oh, he wanted to now. Just put Hux on the floor and twist until he cried out for mercy. Until he bent to his will and stopped arguing with him. He surged forward, his palm resting against Hux’s throat, thumb pressing into one of the discolored spots at his windpipe but not enough to do harm. Kylo didn’t even care that Hux was right anymore; it didn’t matter. Kylo struggled to stay centered, to not act on that animal urge. Hux wouldn’t bend to him that way, not permanently. He had to do something else, something less violent but would still hurt.

“The Order needs you,” he said. “You said it yourself, you command her armies. What will they do without you?”

A look flashed across Hux’s face that Kylo had never seen on his features before; something hurt and concerned in equal measure. “Ren, why do you _care?_ I would think you wanted me out of your hair while you-“ he swallowed hard against the hand on his throat, not about to throw out accusations, but Kylo heard them all the same. Grab for power, run the Order into the ground, chase the girl. “Why keep me out?”

“You belong here.” Kylo said, though he hadn’t wanted to say it out loud. Not like that anyway. He put a little pressure on Hux’s neck, warning against questioning the statement.

Hux took a sharp breath through his nose and stayed still. An uncertain, accusatory silence filled the space between them. Kylo had nothing, no way to tap it down, so he let it wash over him. He could hear the pieces falling into place in Hux’s mind, thunderous and terrible, the footfalls of an apex predator. There was fire in his eyes now, reckless, barely contained. For those few seconds while Hux wrestled with his own control, his own anger, his own animal instinct Kylo saw it. That thing in Hux Snoke always went on about. The rabid cur struggling to bite through his leash before it choked him to death.

What he didn’t see was a man ready to lie down and die.

“You belong here,” he said again, inching closer, the beast in him staring the one in Hux down.

“My place was with the Order.” Hux replied, though even with the benefit of being able to hear Hux’s surface thoughts, Kylo couldn’t tell if he was agreeing or arguing with him. Hux reached up, delicate fingers cool against Kylo’s ungloved wrist, but didn’t pull his hand away. Didn’t even try. Every breath he took was deep, quick, through parted, dry lips. Like each one might be his last.

Ben Solo had always been weak to temptation; he lacked restraint, but in _him_ it had been seen as an awful thing in need of fixing. Kylo needed no such repair, his tenuous control had been his greatest asset, unpredictability the key to every victory. And now, with the temptation so present, so difficult to ignore, Kylo gave in. He pressed a knee into the mattress by Hux’s hip and his free hand to the wall to steady himself, leaned forward those last few inches and kissed him.

Hux snapped his mouth closed at the last second, his teeth clicking together. He grew very still, not fighting but not giving in. Not that it mattered yet.

Kylo waited five years. He could do a few more days.

*~*~*

Kylo stared up at the darkened ceiling reveling in his victory. Beside him Hux breathed evenly, nestled in the crook of his arm. It was awkward, splitting a single bed with a man that nearly matched him in height, but Hux hadn’t been bothered enough to stay awake and Kylo wasn’t about to disturb him.

Pulling Hux in had been a trial of his patience. The general had resisted every kind effort Kylo threw at him; had fought the medics in their recommendations for his recovery, had fought Kylo’s authority as Supreme Leader at every opportunity. He’d vowed, on one occasion when he’d been arguing with Kylo about delegating his workload while on leave, that he would make the knight regret having ever saved him in the first place.

And, _stars_ , could that man deliver on a promise.

His first order of business upon returning to work had been to drown Kylo in bureaucracy, public relations, and diplomacy. Things Snoke usually made Hux do, but were, technically, the Supreme Leader’s duties. Spite permeated every message Hux sent him, every meeting they had, every disparaging glance they exchanged in the corridors.

Kylo had _lived_ for that conflict. Craved it. Actively sought out Hux’s company just to see what new and interesting backhanded comments Hux could come up with. The man was all fire and fury, days of pent up frustration coming out like fireworks. Every slack thread was sharply pulled back into line, weak links cut out of the chain with ruthless efficiency.  It was _glorious_.

Then, there were times when Hux’s guard would drop. When he’d fall into complacency, a shade over his anger, the whirling edges of the black hole creeping into sight. Those were the moments Kylo whittled away at his defenses, chiseling out pieces with a hand on Hux’s throat, a fierce, insistent kiss, and whispered praise as he pulled away. The cycles after, Hux would redouble his efforts to make Kylo’s life hell, but the retaliation periods grew shorter and shorter with time. Until, eventually, they stopped entirely, and the knight knew he’d won.

Kylo shifted his weight and Hux grumbled in protest, clinging to him and leeching out his warmth instead of reaching for the blankets. Kylo was grateful for it, without the dark fabric in the way he could see the mottling on Hux’s skin even in the darkness. Deep red marks littered his shoulder in a splotchy, uneven pattern where teeth had sunk in not quite far enough for proper bite marks. The soft purple of bruises along his hip bone and wrist. All the marks easily concealed by his uniform, but sensitive enough to not be forgotten.

Kylo had a few marks of his own; the nape of his neck still stung from where Hux had tried to pull his hair out at the root. His lower lip tasted like metal when he pressed it with his tongue. A bruise on his shoulder ached and the scar on his side throbbed where Hux was pressed to it. There was still blood in his nose and it itched something awful.

Tendrils of sleep took hold of his mind and pulled him down. He let his eyes drift shut, listening for water, feeling for ice, waiting for that large, mysterious creature to swim close. When he opened them again, he wasn’t floating on top of the pool, but was back at the bottom of it. He stared up at the rays of light, the swirling void beyond the not-quite-stars. The voices behind him stayed muffled, but their tones feminine and familiar, alarmed. Warmth seeped in through the cracks, one at his right ear, one at his left hand.

Without moving the rest of him, he felt along the edge of the fissure; jagged and sharp, tearing at his skin. Jolts of pain rippled up his arm whenever it caught just so, all the way into his chest. He arched his hand, fingers splayed on either side of the crack. The swirling void shape had stopped moving and was watching him, appraising him. He could feel it sizing him up as one might an enemy they’d thought bested, but had returned for another round; surprise, reluctant respect, frustration.

Kylo reached out and the light burned him like he’d wrapped his hand around the blade of his lightsaber.

The slush made it difficult to move in any direction other than down, but with a little forcing he managed it. His hand was still there. Still solid. No burns, but the warm echo remained just beneath the surface.

**Author's Note:**

>  **UPDATE 12-29-17:** Holy fuck you guys. I was not expecting turnout like this what the fuck. What the fuuuuuuck. I'm lucky if my fics get these kind of stats in a year! Thank you so much to everyone that's read this and commented and bookmarked and jfc it's weird to have people like my work. I can't thank you guys enough.
> 
> I'm happy to inform you guys that I'm officially working on a companion piece for this elaborating on some of the ending stuff from Hux's perspective. Though idk when it's gonna be done. This took a week to write and I'm expecting about the same amount of time. Ish.


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